


Sharing the Watch

by serendipityxxi



Category: Haven (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Nightmares, post ep, s03e01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-20
Updated: 2016-04-20
Packaged: 2018-06-03 05:39:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6598921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serendipityxxi/pseuds/serendipityxxi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>It’s overwhelming this whole being cared for thing. Why didn’t anyone tell her that? Maybe she hasn’t always been alone but all those years of Audrey Parker having to tell herself to suck it up and keep going because there was no one who was going to help still <b>feel real.</b> Having someone tell her it’s okay to need help, that she can have it even without asking, that hits her hard. </i> </p><p>Audrey has a hard time sleeping in the first few days after her kidnapping, Nathan and Duke finally convince her to let them help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sharing the Watch

**Author's Note:**

> I always thought they did a nice job of showing Audrey being rattled after her kidnapping and I wanted to give her a little more help in settling back in but I wasn't sure that this story would work then I saw [this deleted scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2n_zTPxoCSs) and I realized she was just as freaked out as I thought she was and decided that I did like this story and so here you have it.

Audrey spends that first night after being kidnapped at the station, filling out report after report until the sun is well above the horizon. She goes from the station to the graveyard and then stalls out.

Find him before the Hunter.

Her mind buzzes like a hive.

She doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to sleep again. Not when the mystery is unfurling before her like this.

Nathan drives her home nonetheless and someone, she suspects Duke, has cleaned the mess up. She’s grateful. So grateful. She collapses into bed to the sounds of the Gull in full swing and wakes before sunset.

She stays awake that night cleaning, she doesn’t think the little apartment has ever been that spotless. When she’s through she turns her focus to combing cold case files, trying to find something to connect Lucy to the Colorado kid. Some mention of the Hunter. Some clue as to who took her. There has to be some connection.

She dozes off around two and wakes with her heart in her throat. The light from outside is wrong and it takes her a minute to realize the lights in the office of the Gull are on. She looks out the window and sees Duke’s truck. She wants to go down, to tell him to go home but she can’t bring herself to turn the lock.

Days pass and she still finds it hard to sleep. Nathan’s bronco appears in the lot earlier and earlier. She knows the shadows under her eyes are giving her away but she cannot force herself to close them for very long without waking from dreams that are full of the stench of burning flesh and the cries of a dead woman.

====

On the fifth day, when they’ve officially given up hope of finding her kidnapper Audrey goes home and doesn’t even try to sleep. She is tired, a bone deep weariness weighing down her frame. She’s been running on near empty since her kidnapping. It’s been five days and she’s exhausted every avenue. She’s beaten every bush. She’s interrogated all of Duke’s staff, checked his parking lot cameras. They’ve talked to every man, woman, child and dog in a two mile radius from the Gull on the night of her abduction and they’ve come up with nothing. She’s tired. Nathan’s tired. The investigation has reached a dead end and she’s so strung out on emotions and coffee she knows it’s not helping.

Knowing that and actually closing her eyes to sleep is another thing entirely though.

Near midnight, when she finds herself wearing a path across the floor of her apartment, there comes a knock on her door. Her breath stutters wildly in her throat before she can stop it. She picks up her gun from the coffee table.

“Who is it?” she calls.

“It’s us,” Nathan calls through the door.

“Us who?” Audrey asks but she opens the door and finds both Nathan and Duke on her doorstep.

“Evening, Audrey,” Duke nods, as if it’s perfectly normal for him and Nathan to show up together anywhere.

She steps back and lets them enter even as she asks “What are you two doing here?” though she has an idea. She's not sure it's one she likes.

“You’re not sleeping,” Duke says plain and simple. “We’re here to help.”

“Help?” Audrey asks, eyeing Nathan with suspicion.

Nathan gives a tight nod and pulls his service weapon from its holster, lays it on her coffee table then takes a seat on her couch.

“We’re here to stand guard,” he explains.

“No one is getting in that door,” Duke agrees, pulling his own weapon and setting it on the coffee table.

“And you both just decided this?” Audrey asks baffled, staring from Nathan to Duke.

Nathan, who couldn’t look at Duke without growling yesterday, nods.

“Didn’t think you’d listen if it was just me,” her partner admits looking sheepish.

Audrey rolls her eyes at him. “I’m not even listening now that there’s two of you. Thank you very much, boys,” she says, “but I am completely capable of defending myself,” she drawls with a nod at her own gun sitting on her bedside table.

“No one’s saying you’re not capable,” Duke steps in, “what we’re saying is, you don’t have to do it alone. You have friends here, let us help.”

His face is so open, so earnest, Audrey feels her throat close up.

“So this is what? An intervention?” she laughs so she doesn’t cry. She’s truly touched and not just a little tempted but she can’t let them do that. How can Nathan take her seriously as his partner if he’s up here making sure there are no bogey men in her closet? She isn’t even really scared of her kidnapper. She’s more scared of the nightmares that wait for her but she can’t tell them that.

“If it needs to be,” Nathan agrees.

“I’m fine, you two,” she insists though her voice cracks a little. She hates how close to the surface her emotions are lately.

“Audrey,” Nathan says, and it’s the fact that he calls her Audrey, not Parker, that gets her attention. “You’re not fine. You need to rest to get to fine.”

“I’ve rested! I was about to rest when you two barged in here,” she gestures at her pajamas.

Duke snorts. “Is that why I’ve heard you pacing up here the last three nights at midnight when I’m closing up the Gull?”

Audrey glowers at Duke. So much for being her friend, the sell-out.

“Parker,” Nathan says and gently, ever so gently, tilts her chin up so her eyes meet his.“You’re not fine,” he ghosts his fingers over the fading bruise on her cheekbone, “and frankly, neither am I. I’ll sleep better knowing you’re safe.”

Audrey lifts her shoulders in a shrug and turns away from him. It’s overwhelming this whole being cared for thing. Why didn’t anyone tell her that? Maybe she hasn’t always been alone but all those years of Audrey Parker having to tell herself to suck it up and keep going because there was no one who wanted to help still _feel real._ Having someone tell her it’s okay to need help, that she can have it even without asking, that hits her hard. It’s not something she can bring herself to turn down.

She shuts her eyes and swallows the lump in her throat before she says “The alarm goes off at 7 and I get the first shower.”

Duke huffs a laugh and Nathan squeezes her shoulder.

Audrey climbs into bed and watches the boys settle into her apartment with trepidation thinking of the nightmares she’s been having. She hopes maybe Nathan and Duke’s presence will be enough to keep them at bay.

Duke stretches out on the couch and Nathan takes first shift in the chair, his head turned towards the door, gun in easy reach. Duke reaches over and flicks the lamp off. The parking lot lights through the windows cast the room into shadows. Audrey lays down and pretends to sleep. She knows how strained things have been between Nathan and Duke lately, and she knows how much it must have cost Nathan to ask him to come with him. She falls asleep for the first time that week not thinking of Roslyn, or her kidnapper, or the Hunter, or the Colorado Kid, but of how lucky she is to have her guys.

====

Nathan glances away from the door after a few long minutes of silence to find Duke staring at Audrey. He barely resists snarling at the other man. He doesn’t want to wake her. He should be grateful to Duke after all. Duke had been the one to come to Nathan confirming his suspicions that Audrey wasn’t sleeping at night, suggesting they do this.

Nathan had seen the shadows under her eyes, the way she got snappier and snappier, and worse how much more impulsive she’d grown as the days wore on. Audrey Parker wasn’t known for treading on the safe side, the sheer number of Troubled people she’d provoked in her career was proof of that but usually the impulsivity was pretty clearly calculated. Nathan worried that she would end up putting herself in real danger but as technically her boss and her actual partner he didn’t think she’d appreciate him sharing that observation.

Duke though provided him with an excuse. Duke wasn’t her boss or her partner, he was a friend and Nathan could come as a friend and maybe Parker would take the support they wanted to offer. Nathan himself had woken up three nights out of the last four sure Audrey was gone again. It was a big comfort to be able to sit here in the semi-darkness and know that she was safe, or as safe as anyone could get in Haven.

Duke shifted on the couch and Nathan bit back a snide remark. He was angry, so angry, at Duke. He was also more than a little angry at himself. Angry he got the tattoo, angry he’d let his fear overwhelm him. He knows he shouldn’t trust Duke but old habits are hard to break and if he slips and trusts him the wrong time and that gets Parker killed? Well Nathan wouldn’t be able to live with himself. So he has to be vigilant, this truce tonight is the lowest he’s going to relax his guard around the man and that’s for Audrey. She wouldn’t have gotten any rest if they were snapping at each other all night.

Still, Nathan watches Duke carefully, and wonders which face is real. The one tonight that’s so full of concern for Audrey, the one that was full of horror as a man used Duke’s hand to commit suicide, the friend who listened when he confessed he could feel Audrey’s touch? Or is it the one that Nathan knows he can wear, the one who stuck tacks in an eight year-old’s back and laughed about it, the one who held a gun on him in the woods at the behest of a bigoted old man in the name of learning about his past?

Audrey believes in him, believes him when he says he’s on their side but she doesn’t know him the way Nathan does. Duke doesn’t look much like his father, but Nathan remembers how much he wanted to please his old man when he was alive. If anything, Nathan knows how hard it can be to go against what your family tradition dictates. He doesn’t know if Duke, who would rather run than fight, could possibly beat that. With all the Troubled people who depend on him, with their lives at stake, with Parker’s life at stake, how can he trust Duke to make the right call in this situation?

====

Audrey wakes herself up screaming at three a.m. Nathan is standing by the bed his gun at his side, face frozen in alarm. Duke is sitting on the bed next to her, his big hands on her shoulders. He must have shaken her awake. Audrey’s voice cuts off, but in the next breath a sob claws its way up from the pit of her stomach. Audrey claps a hand over her mouth but can’t stop the next one from coming, or the next.

“Audrey,” Duke is saying, “you’re okay. You’re safe,” she nods frantically.

“I know,” she says but it comes out strangled past the lump in her throat that isn’t going away.

Duke’s hand cups her cheek. “You’re hyperventilating, Audrey,” he says and his voice is so calm it’s like a shock to her system. “Can you breathe with me?” he asks. “In,” he takes a long slow breath to demonstrate “and out.”

Nathan presses a bottle of water into her hand and she uncaps it with trembling fingers. She takes a sip and spills a good deal down her front. Duke’s hand comes up to help hold the bottle steady. She passes the bottle off to her partner and he moves to get off the bed probably to put it down.

“Nathan,” she cries out and she hates how close to a whimper it is but he’s back, his hand covering her free one.

"I'm here, Parker." He drops the bottle to the floor instead and sits gingerly on the opposite side of her from Duke, silent and steady as Duke’s voice leads her into if not a state of calm, she’s at least calmer.

"He's not going anywhere Audrey, just breathe with me."

She tips her head back in hopes of convincing the tears not to fall but they slip out, one after the other. She can feel Nathan and Duke having some kind of silent conversation but they both sit still, holding onto her hands, grounding her.

“We’ll get him,” Nathan promises with quiet vehemence.

“For Roslyn,” Audrey agrees. “She didn’t deserve to die like that, afraid and alone,” Audrey’s breath hitches on the words and she dares not open her eyes. Nathan’s shoulder is solid against hers, Duke’s hand warm in her palm. Audrey is not alone.

“No one does,” Duke agrees and Audrey knows he means it. Her heart aches for him and the man with the maze tattoo that he knows will spell his end. In her dream Duke was the one tied in the basement, Nathan in the room next door and Audrey was too late to save them both. The room burned and burned around them even as she screamed her throat raw.

“It…” Audrey’s throat closes in on her again. She clears it and starts over. “It’s good having you here. Thanks,” she ends on a whisper, squeezing both their hands.

And it is. It is really freaking nice, to wake up and know that they’re safe, that they’re okay. What’s really got her scared is that her kidnapper let her escape. It implies that if he wanted to he’d come after her again and he knows now that he can use other people to get to her. She worries he’ll use Nathan or Duke and she won’t have the answers to save them like she didn’t for Roslyn. She’s frustrated and angry that they haven’t been able to turn up any information. She just wants this to be over with. She wants answers. She wants to live her life without all these damn questions.

“You’re both being careful, right?” she asks the two of them suddenly.

Nathan makes a noise but Duke cuts him off. “As careful as we can,” he assures her.

Audrey scoffs. “Which means about two notches above kamikaze, in Nathan’s case,” her voice comes out stronger now. The dream is fading, their weight on the mattress, the warmth of their hands in hers helping to drive it off.

“Haven’t been shot at all week,” Nathan objects in that slow drawl of his. It makes her smile. She opens watery eyes to find him watching her with naked concern.

Duke saves her by scoffing, “You were only dragged face first across the woods and into a field by an invisible force, totally safe.”

Nathan’s noise of protest is so indignant it makes Audrey laugh even as she feels him rankle at Duke’s words, the long line of his thigh goes rigid where it’s pressed against her hip. She squeezes his hand again, hard. Don’t, she begs silently and rushes to say: “Not to mention almost being abducted by aliens,” she makes her words a tease to defuse the tension in Nathan's muscles. The boys fall quiet but neither moves.

No one makes mention of the bruise on Nathan’s cheekbone or Duke’s. Audrey knows they fought, knows whatever is going on between them is bad. She’s grateful that they’ve chosen to hold a truce tonight, she won’t pick at it.

“Can we not do any of those things,” she asks and her voice cracks without her consent in the middle of that.

"I am very much in favor of not doing any of those things," Duke assures her.

“We can try,” Nathan agrees.

They sit in silence for a long while afterwards in the dark. Audrey can hear the soft susurration of the waves outside and it’s probably the first time all week she’s noticed it. Her silverware windchimes tinkle in the wind off the water. The heater hums on and Audrey is reminded that fall is upon them. She wonders what the bay will look like over the winter, if the frost will paint her windows or if there’s too much salt this close to the coast. Duke’s chin drops to his chest and he startles awake, startling Audrey as well. Her eyes fly open wider in alarm as he gets up but he just shakes his head, gives her hand a squeeze and settles back in, shoulder to shoulder, head tipped back against the headboard.

On her left Nathan gives a soft snore that makes Audrey grin. She lets her head rest lightly against his shoulder and threads her fingers between Duke’s. She is well and truly surrounded by her boys, their shoulders rise on either side of her like walls against the horrors of her dreams. The softness of Duke’s sweater against her arm and the scent of Nathan’s aftershave in her nose ground her in the moment. She feels... safe, it’s a novel feeling for Audrey Parker Protector of the Troubled, it’s kinda nice.

She doesn’t remember when she closed her eyes but the next thing she knows sunlight is streaming through her windows, the alarm has long been silenced and both her boys are gone from the bed. She’s still not alone though; there are waffles keeping warm in the microwave and a note from Nathan instructing her not to come into the station until noon, signed “Your boss”. She snorts and throws away the note but settles in to eat her breakfast in peace. She takes her coffee out onto the deck and listens to the Gull coming to life below her. Audrey feels calm, clear in a way she hasn’t in days. She's going to solve the mystery of the Colorado kid. She's going to find Roslyn's killer. She knows she will because she won't have to do it alone.


End file.
